


The Problem With Cats

by sbdrag



Series: Cats and Dogs [2]
Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Reflection, animal comparisons, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:45:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbdrag/pseuds/sbdrag
Summary: Jack was not a cat person - so how did he end up with a guy that's pretty much exactly that?





	The Problem With Cats

**Author's Note:**

> I finally finished this, yay... quick reminder since it's kind of only mentioned once in the previous fic, Jack is 18 here.

Jack was  _ not _ a cat person.

 

Between Katnappe and Chase’s jungle warriors, the whole idea had kind of been ruined for him. Not that he was big on them to start with.

 

For one thing, the little fuzzbutts were selfish and vain. When you tried to pay attention to them, they ignored you in haughty disdain. But if you  _ didn’t _ pay attention to them, suddenly they were constantly underfoot, or in your lap, or batting away the circuit board you were soldering. They always had to have their way, regardless of what you wanted. They ruined things by scratching or knocking them down, and didn’t even feel bad about it! It was like they didn’t even care!

 

Chase Young, the boy genius was beginning to realize, was a lot like a cat.

 

The first thing he’d done after nursing Jack back to health (physically  _ and _ mentally) was move him into his lair. Jack had protested (albeit weakly), but Chase had decided and… well, that was that.

 

At the very least the Heylin Prince of Darkness had carved out a new space in his citadel for Jack. It had mollified the boy genius enough to stop trying to come up with a better argument for why he needed to stay home. (Chase would call it whining, but Jack wasn’t about to admit  _ that _ , even in his own head.)

 

From there things had started to fall into something of a routine. Chase rose early to meditate and practice Tai Chi. Then he would have a light breakfast and tea. After came sparring with his warrior cats and maybe spying on the Xiaolin monks. By the time lunch rolled around, Jack had woken up.

 

Unless his Wu alarm went off, Jack was a late sleeper. This was mainly because he stayed up most the night working on his Jackbots or a new project. It wasn’t that he planned it; he just got caught up and lost track of time. Sometimes he conked out in his new (admittedly  _ much _ bigger) lab on a workbench or in a pile of parts because he worked to exhaustion. (More often than not, he woke up in bed, which his back and neck were extremely grateful for.)

 

So Jack would roll out of bed and take a quick shower (a modern convenience he’d had to install himself - with a little help from Chase on the magical plumbing) before stumbling to the dining room for breakfast/lunch.

 

He and Chase would proceed to eat noncommittally. Mainly due to the fact the Jack wasn’t really awake before coffee in amounts Chase found mildly concerning.

 

Before, Jack didn’t eat when he got up, just had coffee. When Chase found this out, regular meals (at least the two they were both awake for) were something he made a point of. A fine point, in fact, by dragging Jack out of his lab to eat.

 

(Normally, this was something he would have his cats do. But the cats and the Jackbots had come to an uneasy truce; the Jackbots stayed in Jack’s spaces and the cats stayed out of them. Jack had actually built and Ambassabot and one of the cats served as the ambassador for the other party, starting a complex feline-robotic governing system that had no real relevance to _ this _ story, but was still kind of cool.)

 

So Chase made sure Jack ate at least twice a day, which showed in the way the boy genius never quite trimmed down to his typically reedy frame.

 

After this meal together, Chase would train Jack. He still refused to make him an apprentice, but would not let him get away with not doing any physical activity. (Even if, admittedly, Jack had surprised him with how quickly he grew wiry muscle from building his robots and contraptions.)

 

At first, Jack had not complained about the training. This was  _ Chase Young, _ after all, training  _ him _ . But that didn’t last long. As the novelty wore off and it cut into his robot building time ( _ especially _ when inspiration hit and he couldn’t run off to go work on his latest crazy scheme), the boy genius had started complaining. Chase decided to completely ignore what he was saying. (The fact that Jack had been doing better at Showdowns notwithstanding.)

 

But he would get through the lesson, then go to work on his machines. (Chase was not a fan of the lab; he didn’t like Jack’s taste in music or how cluttered it all felt to him - even if Jack insisted it was an ‘organized mess’ and that he ‘had a system’.) He would work until dinner, though more often than not a bot had to remind him.

 

Chase, though not strained by the training, would bathe before dinner. He would take his time - it was one of the few times he would dismiss his warriors to be truly alone. He often used the time to reflect on the day or plan the next - or so he’d told Jack. (He couldn’t help but  _ ask _ \- seriously, who spent four hours  _ bathing _ and  _ grooming _ ? Not that Jack had  _ any _ complaints with the results…)

 

Dinner would be more animated than lunch - at least on Jack’s part. After enough encouragement the first few times, the genius inventor (as he grew older, Jack realized he’d get stuck with “boy” genius forever if he didn’t work to change it) would go into long-winded explanations of what he’d been working on that day, the problems he ran into, troubleshooting, etc. 

 

Chase would politely listen and occasionally interject, but Jack was 75% certain the heylin prince of darkness had no idea what he was talking about. The only reason there was such a wide margin of doubt was because this was  _ Chase _ and the dark prince had one of the best poker faces Jack had ever seen. He could also be mostly ignoring Jack and being polite for the sake of the genius’s mental health.

 

Jack didn’t mind the strange domesticity of the situation - it was that he had  _ any _ sort of domesticity with Chase that threw him off. Well, that and one other thing. 

 

They still hadn’t talked about The Sex.

 

It hadn’t happened again, either. Every time Jack had tried to bring it up, Chase had deflected or flat out ignored him. They didn’t even share a room again! Although it was never denied, Jack was seriously starting to wonder if it had really happened - if he’d really had a  _ playful _ ,  _ interested _ …  _ gentle _ Chase all to himself. It certainly  _ sounded _ insane. So, after several months of the same treatment, Jack decided to just drop the issue. 

 

So of course that was when Chase started acting differently. 

 

For the first several months, Chase and Jack coexisted without much interaction - moving through the same places while living separate lives. Then it was… not. 

 

The work Jack did on his robots and machines required a lot of focus - and once he really got started, the outside world kind of stopped existing. So at first, he didn’t even notice Chase wandering in and watching him work with an inscrutable expression. The dark prince never stayed long enough to be noticed in the beginning. 

 

It was still scary as  _ fuck _ when Jack looked up and found Chase eye level and less than a foot away, leaning on the other side of his workbench. 

 

The inventor shrieked and fell back, “C-Chase! How long have you  _ been _ there?”

 

The heylin warlord tilted his head casually, “How long do you think?”

 

“Uh…” Jack scratched the back of his neck - he knew how he got, but  _ still _ , “A few minutes, maybe…?”

 

Chase snorted and rose - gracefully, pushing silken black hair back.

 

No matter how long he bathed, Jack knew he would  _ never _ be striking enough to make someone’s entire mouth dry up the way Chase made his.

 

“I have been here,” the man himself said, “For over an hour.”

 

Jack jumped, and his eyes darted to the clock - no, it wasn’t time for dinner yet. So then… “Did… did you need something?”

 

“No,” Chase said, and walked past _so_ _closely_ that he nearly brushed Jack’s arm as he left. 

 

Other than dragging him away for meals or training, it was the closest Chase had come to touching him since after The Sex. And after that, it kept happening. Not everyday, but often enough - Jack would look up from a finished project to see Chase leaning against a wall. He’d fall over after an accidental shock and the unimpressed warlord would arch a brow at him from one of the other benches. His hand would bump into Chase as he reached for a tool. The dark prince once pulled him out from under a machine right before it collapsed on top of him (he would have been  _ fine _ , it happens).

 

Hell, at some point Chase snuck an entire  _ bench _ \- a nice lounging bench from another room - into a corner. When Jack had asked, the warlord claimed he’d moved it in a few days before - despite never noticing, the wayward inventor believed him. 

 

Jack wiped the sweat off his brow (spreading oil in its place) and looked up from something he was working on - for all appearances, Chase was napping on that bench just now. Whether it was despite or in spite of the blaring heavy metal music, Jack doubted he’d ever know. 

 

He was also pretty sure he wouldn’t get an answer about why Chase was just… hanging out, more or less, so he just shrugged and went back to work. 

 

Of course, that meant he missed the glint of golden eyes peeking over at him before closing again. 

 

After that, Chase was more… noticeable. 

 

By, like,  _ a lot _ . 

 

First, it was picking up random tools and small devices and examining them - then identifying them and asking Jack if he was right. (He’d yet to be wrong, and the young inventor felt a little guilty for thinking the warlord hadn’t been listening to him after prompting him to speak.) Of course, that was something Jack sometimes did on autopilot - yeah, he answered, but he didn’t know he had. To be completely honest, he didn’t even realize he’d been asked a question. 

 

Chase was the one to point it out to him later - in his own way. 

 

That way being gently pressing down what Jack was working on with a finger and staring him in the face while asking, “And this is the new gyroscopic core for your robots, isn’t it?”

 

Jack nearly fell off the bench in surprise - only to be stopped by the warlord grabbing his upper arm to steady him.

 

“Uh… uh, y-yeah,” the young man stuttered, blinking rapidly, “When did you-”

 

“You’ve been indulging my questions for the past twenty minutes,” Chase said. 

 

“Indulging your- what?” Jack asked, looking around and - oh, yeah, he guessed some things  _ had  _ been moved. Just a little bit, like maybe someone had picked them up and put them back down.

 

Chase hadn’t moved, eyes darting down to the collarbone exposed by the inventor’s tank top while he was distracted, then back up, “Do you always hold conversations without realizing it?”

 

“Uh,” Jack said eloquently, suddenly hyper aware of the warlord’s proximity - and the hand still on his arm. He swallowed and looked back, already feeling his face heating up, “O-only when I’m working…”

 

“I see,” Chase said, and left - letting his hand ghost down the young heylin’s arm as withdrew it. 

 

Jack just sat and stared ahead for a few minutes before groaning and pounding his head into the table. He’d wonder  _ why _ Chase was doing this, but first he’d have to figure out  _ what _ Chase was doing - but answers were always something Chase expected without feeling the need to return. 

 

Chase moved on to his next new behavior - more touching. 

 

A hand brushing across Jack’s shoulders as the warlord walked to the otherside of the lab. A tap of a boot against the inventor’s ankle to make his presence known when Jack was working under a vehicle. Sitting back to back and reading while Jack worked. Putting a hand on the young heylin’s shoulder while asking about his work. And if Jack brought attention to it, Chase would just… leave without a word. 

 

It was driving him crazy. 

 

Jack thought maybe -  _ maybe _ \- it was some kind of game. Like, to see how much effort it took to get his attention. Sure, usually he just threw himself all over Chase whenever the guy was around - come on, it was  _ Chase _ \- but after the Incident TM , and living in Chase’s fortress, and getting training, and being (forcefully) moved, the domesticity kind of just… seeped in. 

 

Chase wasn’t some unattainable dream anymore - he was the guy who took four hour baths and looked genuinely  _ concerned _ by the amount of coffee he drank on a daily basis. The guy who insisted exercise was good for him and dragged him to regular meals. Besides that, Chase had always seemed to  _ hate _ Jack’s fanboying in the past - why would he want it  _ now _ ?

 

_ Whelp, only one way to find out, _ Jack thought, deciding on his own little experiment. 

 

_ This _ time, once he noticed Chase, Jack gave him his  _ full _ attention.

 

“Chase! Hey, I wanted to show you this!” the young genius said, wrapping his arms around one of the warlord’s and pulling him over to different machine.

 

The dark prince had barely reached out at the time, and stiffened at the sudden contact. He didn’t resist, allowing himself to moved - but he looked sidelong at inventor. 

 

“It’s the water drill I was telling you about,” Jack babbled, “I finally figured out how to make one small enough to fit on the Jackbots!”

 

As the heylin inventor continued on the more technical aspects of the drill, he tried to gauge Chase’s reaction. He didn’t try to be subtle - there was no way he could out bluff Chase anyways. Instead, he put his reservations behind him and put on his best  _ notice me!  _ face. 

 

Chase’s face remained as impassive as ever - but his chest rose ever so slightly, shoulders going back - posture becoming more strict. 

 

“Anyways, it’s cool, right?” Jack finished off, feeling a little pathetic at how  _ easy _ it was to seek Chase’s approval - he didn’t even need to  _ fake  _ that part.

 

The warlord cleared his throat, “Yes - it seems like you’ve worked hard.”

 

The smile it prompted wasn’t fake either - well, not at first. Jack had to force it wider to keep it in place when such light praise - if it could even be considered praise - made his chest feel light and warm. He went back to babbling about the invention, and pretended not to notice Chase slowly excuse himself from the lab.

 

For about two weeks, Jack poured on the admiration - it wasn’t hard to fall into old habits. Meals, training - both had him fawning over Chase just like he has when he was younger. And for that entire time, there was no Chase in his lab. The Jackbot he’d assigned to monitoring Chase’s appearances declared that usually the dark prince would have visited 5-12 times in the same span. 

 

Then came the hard part - flipping the switch. After all, he had to have some kind of control in this experiment. 

 

So he started ignoring Chase. 

 

It took three days from Chase to appear in his lab again - and even though he noticed, Jack continued to ignore the heylin prince. No matter what Chase did - asking questions, invading his personal space, turning off his music, touching - Jack acted like he was too absorbed with his work to notice. He made sure Chase had to drag him to training and meals, and spoke as little as he needed to. 

 

The frown that was crossing Chase’s face more often made Jack question just how dangerous his experiment was, but he pressed on - if Chase wanted him dead, he would have just left him to waste away. 

 

It was nearing the end of the second week that Jack got… an answer?

 

He’d been very resolutely ignoring Chase, even as the dark prince put both hands on Jack’s shoulders and leaned over to watch his work and ask questions, when those hands shifted to the young genius’s waist and lifted him.

 

Jack yelped in surprise as the warlord sat, putting the younger man in his lap. 

 

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Chase’s voice curled like smoke against the shell of his ear, “You weren’t before.”

 

And then there were hands slipping under Jack’s shirt and a tongue and  _ teeth _ at his neck and -  _ oh, _ if this was what happened when he ignored Chase, he needed to ignore the warlord more often. 

 

And then the hands paused to deliver a command, “Keep working.”

 

Jack whined - and then reached for his tools with shaky hands. As long as he kept working, Chase kept touching - honestly, at this rate, he was going to have to scrap the whole circuit board and start again. 

 

But when one of those  _ oh so warm _ hands palmed his erection through his jeans, Jack’s hands faltered and he hissed as he accidentally cut himself. 

 

Chase didn’t miss a beat - one hand slipped under his waistband and the other knocked work and tools aside to grab the young genius’s injured hand. The warlord pulled it back and licked the wound and -  _ holy shit that was not something that was supposed to be hot.  _

 

Jack came with a whimper, whole body shuddering before he slumped forward. If his arm hadn’t already been there, he would have hit his head on the desk in front of him. 

 

Chase snorted, pulling his hands back - but only to wrap them around the younger heylin’s torso. 

 

“If you wanted my attention you can just ask…” Jack muttered into his arm.

 

For a moment, nothing - then a hand moving to stroke through his hair, “I think it looked better white.”

 

“Ugh,” the young genius replied, “I see why you like cats.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“You act just like them,” Jack groused. 

 

Chase paused a moment, then snorted again - then chuckled.

 

“What?” 

 

“Nothing,” the warlord replied. He wrapped his arm back around Jack’s waist, and leaned on him, tucking his chin against the younger heylin’s shoulder, “And I could say the same to you.”

 

“Hn?”

 

“About wanting attention,” Chase said, and there is was again - that gentle,  _ teasing _ tone - the one Jack had seriously begun to think he’d imagined. 

 

The genius inventor shivered. 

 

“Have you…” Jack stopped, biting his lip. 

 

Chase hummed inquisitively. 

 

“Have you… wanted me to ask?”

 

Jack regretted it the minute the words left his mouth - Chase was too smart not to see the question for what it  _ really _ was. The young heylin’s face redden with embarrassment - even after everything, he was still an insecure teenager seeking Chase’s approval. 

 

And then he landed on his back with an  _ oof _ and was looking up at the warlord. 

 

Chase was watching him with a sort of intensity Jack had never seen before. The young genius had no idea what he was looking  _ for _ , either. But, hey, they were Chase’s bed so… progress?

 

The dark prince reached up and gently cupped Jack’s face, running a thumb over his bottom lip and then letting the hand trail downwards. It slid down the young heylin’s arm, and gently gripped his wrist. Chase pulled Jack’s hand up and against his crotch - against the erection Jack wasn’t sure how he’d missed before. It sent a fuzzy shock of arousal up the inventor’s spine. 

 

Chase leaned down and spoke right into his ear, “Touch me, Jack.”

 

And boy, did that just  _ do _ things. 

 

Jack had no idea what he was doing as fumbled with removing Chase’s armor - which very helpfully disappeared under his hands. 

 

“That’s convenient…” he muttered, shaky with nerves - he’d never done this before. And now he was doing it with… 

 

“Focus,” Chase said, sinful, silky voice doing anything but helping - especially not when his tongue followed the word. 

 

Jack whined, but tried to focus - this wasn’t rocket science, and he knew how to do  _ that _ , so… 

 

It took a little more fumbling - and some coaching from Chase - but soon he had enough of a handle on things to move his hands up and down the warlord’s (of course impressive) shaft. 

 

“Do you want me to fuck you?” the dark prince asked, completely breaking Jack’s concentration.  

 

The young genius’s hips canted up of their own accord, and he nodded fervently - despite the initial pain, Chase fucking him had been  _ good _ . 

 

“Then I guess you’ll have to ask,” Chase drawled, sitting up and pulling off his top. He looked down at Jack with a smirk, waiting. 

 

The young genius took in a sharp breath - oh, he was so perfect and evil and… and… and  _ perfectly evil _ . 

 

“I kind of hate you,” Jack said, mostly on accident. 

 

“Do you?” Chase mused, letting his eyes rake down the young heylin’s body. 

 

Jack wasn’t sure if it was the obvious ogling or the flirting that made him moan a little, “Well, what if I don’t?”

 

“You will,” the dark prince said, with nothing but confidence - and, if Jack was reading things right - just a  _ touch _ of vanity. 

 

He was right, of course - and the sex was wonderful, naturally - but it was really the  _ next _ day that made Jack absolutely sure of Chase’s cat-like tendencies. The next day, when he discovered the bed he’d been using up to that point had just mysteriously disappeared, with only an unimpressed stare from the warlord when he asked. 

 

_ The absolute worst thing about cats _ , Jack thought, even as he started over on the circuit board Chase had caused him to ruin,  _ was that once you fell in love with one, there was nothing it could do to change your mind. _


End file.
